Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2021

In a somewhat off-topic blog today, I'd like to quickly lament the state of Macintosh gaming. I've been a Mac user for well over a decade now, and I prefer to support Mac companies for supporting the OS I'm using to blog right now. When I hear a game I'm interested in owning is going to be released for the Mac, I generally don't mind going out of my way to get the Mac version. A few extra bucks, a few extra months... I really don't have time to play the games I own now as it is.

Right now there are three games available for the Mac that I'd like to purchase. The first two are The Sims and Civilization III. The Sims I'm not sold on quite yet -- seems like one of those games that you either like or don't with no middle ground. Mac or PC, this game is still awfully expensive. With Civ3, I know I'm going to get my dough's worth, and it's a good, low-sys req game that should play fine on my iBook. No problem that it doesn't support multiplayer online on the Mac. If I want to play others online I'll get a build of FreeCiv.

The third is No One Lives Forever, and this is the one I'd like to complain about. It's been out for the PC so long it's already got it's own "Game of the Year Edition".

Now I like to buy games and other expensive toys, and do have a bit of a budget for how much I can sink into stuff like buying the REALbasic IDE or the VB.NET portion of Visual Studio.NET. To pre-order NOLF for the Mac is $50. To go to the local gaming store and pick up NOLF off the shelf is $20 with quite a bit less wait time. That's madness. Save $30 and put that towards NCAA 2003 for the Playstation 2!

Another rant along the same lines... One place even Linux gaming kicks the Mac's arse is in hardware costs. Doom 3 looks exciting enough if the mood comes out anywhere close to what's advertised that between that and the bar-raising-through-the-roof graphics I'm going to buy it even though I suck at first person shooters other than Team Fortress on Quake 1 (and even that's debatable). My iBook's not going to run Doom 3. Neither is my Celeron Win2k tower. Nor is, surprise, my old StarMax Mac clone desktop. I'm going to have to buy a new system.

To upgrade to a new Mac tower, heck even an eMac, will cost well over a thousand dollars. To purchase enough components to upgrade my PC will cost me $350 (though I'll probably need a better video card to "really" play). To make a PC from scratch and load it with Linux would cost me about $500, and I'm betting Doom 3 runs just great on that box.

Mac gaming will never be worth a rip until the games it does get at least have concurrent releases, and if the prices fall in step with the PC side. Rather, Mac gaming will continue to be more full of "character" than anything else -- Ambrosia software and some other Mac-specific games will probably be about all that interests me.

And now, back to playing a little Stuntman that I rented for $6.90 for my Playstation 2...

Yesterday, Slashdot ran an article entitled Web Designers Ignoring Standards and Support IE Only. The article got a fair number of replies, though I haven't yet bothered.

Here's the bottom line for me: Web developers are not paid to be idealists. We're paid to be efficient.

If 99% of one's intended audience already uses IE on Windows, there no compelling reason to make sure the users of other browsers enjoy the same "uplevel" experience. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll know I'm a cross-platform proponent. I use two Macs at home, one with Classic and one with OS X (including X11 on top of Darwin) and at work I use Mozilla for email (against company policy; what a rebel!) and most of my browsing. I'm not saying that one should condone sites that are unusable in other browsers, just that there's no reason to waste time making sure all the functionality in IE is there for other minority browser users. People shouldn't expect web hackers brought up on the Visual Studio IDE to have the skills to write perfect code, nor should they expect companies to have the money to hire only the people that take it on themselves to make this sort of code.

And the answer that people should use Flash and Java to get fancy functionality into their pages just drives me crazy. Using proprietary third-party plug-ins, regardless of their seemingly ubiquitous nature (Can I have a spell check?!!), is an even worse cop out. You think iCab supports Flash? (I'm not sure, personally) How about Links or Lynx? Any way you slice it, you're going to be missing someone. And how many of these self-righteous posters check their code even on Opera? You can stick Mozilla in a microwave, but that don't make you a biscuit.

Like it or not, the web is [currently] Microsoft's on the client side. Programmers aren't paid to be political; they're [usually] paid to be efficient and to provide the "most" products to an efficiently maximized cross-section of their company's clients. Web standards are a great but often esoteric place to maximize cross-platform usefulness, but even .innerHtml started out as a non-standard property.

Anyhow, enough rambling. You wanna provide everyone the same experience? Use html 3.2 (kinda like this blog). You want to provide fancy thick functionality in a thin client? Use dhtml. If you want your dhtml to provide political commentary, make it work perfectly in every browser. If you want to get your job done and make the boss happy, make sure it at least works on Windows in IE.

(As a side note, I usually run rush jobs through the latest versions of Windows IE and Mozilla on Mac and Windows. I use IE to make sure the boss and our clients are happy, and I use Mozilla to make sure that, if the minority browser client will meet me half-way, they too can have access "as intended". Then, when applicable, I make a dummy html 3.2 page for everyone else. Just 2¢.)

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
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Wednesday, July 31, 2002
SPAM SPAM SPAM today... If you need to parse IIS logs, I can recommend Weblog Expert Lite for a quick fix. When your boss's boss's boss says, "How many Netscape 4.x users do we have hitting site X?", it's certainly useful. Creates neat little graphics and web pages with browser type, OS type, referring page, hits per day, visitors per day, etc. It's a Windows app, and had the bonus of being the first freeware app off of a Google for site stat apps that installed without a hitch on my Windows 2000 box. I don't even know how accurate it is yet (missed the OS and browser for calls to our servlet engine and just labelled them "Other" without a warning, for instance), but it did the job we needed awfully quickly. Ah, one last hint. On Windows, go to "C:\WINNT\system32\LogFiles\W3SVC1" (or wherever you store your IIS logs) and type... `copy *.log allLogs.txt` ... at the command prompt to quickly concatenate your IIS logs. posted by ruffin at 7/31/2002 10:55:00 AM

Just found Dia, a GNU app designed to do what MS Visio does. Perhaps most impressive is the number of output formats, including .eps, .tex, .svg, and .png. Made with The GIMP Toolkit, Dia runs on Linux and Windows -- and, if you tweak a little, rebuild, and install X11, probably Darwin/Mac OS X. posted by ruffin at 7/31/2002 10:45:00 AM

And I believe we have a contender for my favorite Java error of all time. Recalling the "reallyDoThePaintOrUpdate" escapade from January, we now have the bad magic number error. I'd actually heard of magic numbers recently when I had some time to work on my Atari 2600 project. Using assembler, it's easy to get locked into a hexidecimal mindset, and I had quite a few things happening in powers of two. Graphics were displayed for sixteen (2^4) scan lines, each player had eight (2^3) frames of animation, etc. When I posted my code to the Stella programming list, I received a useful comment of how to stop using (or to stop limiting myself to) "magic numbers" like 8,16, and other powers of two. To me, however, magic numbers in machine language code make the code easier to follow. Next time I have free time for the Atari, I'll have to see which way I decide to go... Unfortunately this Java magic number error only seems to be referring to the fact that the return value indicating success for some call is an easy to read number in hexidecimal, and even then (see link) it's just a adolescent-esque joke allowing the programmers to have a return value that uses the letters A-E (which are numbers in hex) to spell "CAFEBABE" (for "java woman", I suppose, which could be an interesting play on words with Java Man). So I think I'm sticking with "reallyDoThePaintOrUpdate" as my favorite text from a Java exception dump, at least for the time being. Another essential newsflash thanks to myfreakinname! posted by ruffin at 7/31/2002 10:14:00 AM

Tuesday, July 30, 2002
Crimminy folk, it's a Mac, not a MAC. posted by ruffin at 7/30/2002 03:47:00 PM

Monday, July 29, 2002
This is probably going to become popular enough that the top browsers "fix" it, but here's a link describing how to close any browser window with javascript. Incredibly surprising how many browsers actually support this. It's just a clever hack, setting the parent of a window to "top". I haven't dug too much yet, but it looks like it's borderline "brilliant" (which to me means to do something that's horribly obvious to everyone after they're shown how it was done (like including spellcheck in a web browser -- so that I don't misspell "brilliant", losing all any credibility I might have had)). posted by ruffin at 7/29/2002 11:15:00 AM

Friday, July 26, 2002
Another quote from Joel on Software: Probably the worst thing you can do is to decide that you have to be an Amazon company, and then act like a Ben and Jerry's company (while in denial all the time). Amazon companies absolutely must substitute cash for time whenever they can. You may think you're smart and frugal by insisting on finding programmers who will work at market rates. But you're not so smart, because that's going to take you six months, not two months, and those 4 months might mean you miss the Christmas shopping season, so now it cost you a year, and probably made your whole business plan unviable. You may think that it's smart to have a Mac version of your software, as well as a Windows version, but if it takes you twice as long to ship while your programmers build a compatibility layer, and you only get 15% more customers, well, you're not going to look so smart, then, are you? You could apply that to show why people aren't making games for the Mac or Linux (except places like id -- who started as a shareware company! Very Ben & Jerry -- versus EA "Landgrab" Sports (not exactly a landgrab, but you get the picture)). Or why we can't hire enough qualified people where I work in 45 days. Or how my company (as in the co. for which I work, not one I own) is at cross-purposes trying to "Become a 500 million revenue company by year XXXX with an IPO at XXXX+2," and trying to hire people to the "laid-back, comfortable work environment of this coastal town that time forgot..." But it certainly describes the dotcom bust... when everyone was grabbing land, you had to speculate on who was going to come up with the gold. And the people whose companies were in the landgrab had to convince you to throw them dough like mad so that they could keep grabbing. The market bit the PR, didn't notice that in the end only one company would be left standing (or ignored that it might not be the company they were banking on, quite literally), and boom. Welp, back to the thought-mill. posted by ruffin at 7/26/2002 04:41:00 PM

Another update in today's "research day"... Been reading an article/comment called JavaMail Reliability - Three Nines and Counting... from Brute Squad Labs. Though BSL has missed their own deadline for releasing their project "Iocaine", it seems to be a pretty fair and interesting read about how good JavaMail is, and how this fellow feels JavaMail does on the reliability scale. This fellow loves unit testing, to say the least. I'm not sure I'd be happy that half my code for a project is for unit tests, but then I can't ever decide if I like eXtreme programming either. Code inevitably gets better the more [well-informed and skillful] eyes that pass over it, and gets better several orders of magnitude more quickly when other sets of fingers have to code using it. At the same time, it's easier (imo) to figure out the first gross or so bugs on your own. No reason two people have to sit through bone headed off-by-one errors. That's a waste of time. And before you say Person 1 will catch Person 2's obo error any faster than Person 2 wouold alone, s/he won't. When two people talk while coding, the appearence of obo [and other careless] errors tends to occur in stunning coincidences, like when pendulum clocks all tick the same when stored near each other. Of course I realize there's more to XP than two people sitting at a desk, and I think I like the concept of unit testing, but I think I like to sit down and start coding towards the whole without bothering to make tests for each baby step and then refactor. But then I would; h'it don't make it smart. For some more interesting reading, I got a kick out of their experiences with a Mac (they're testing their product on OS X) in their article Adventures in Multiple Operating Systems with Java, which really doesn't have much to do with Java. posted by ruffin at 7/26/2002 03:04:00 PM

Okay, just downloaded my newest "critical updates" for Windows 2000 which consisted of another buffer overflow fix and security updates for Windows Media Player 7.1. I don't use Media Player much here at work, but what the heck, figured it was worth fixing. You never know which incestuous dll is required to type "Fred" in Notepad. Welp, quick complaint is that this security update put the Windows Media Player icon back on my desktop and in my taskbar. The second, though admittedly a very easy thing to fix, was especially annoying as it caused my taskbar to wrap and lose about three icons I use weekly or so. Again, by itself a minor annoyance, but why are these installed as part of a security fix? And no, adding RealPlayer icons along with the WMP icons isn't a good fix. :^) Can it be long before Bonzi Buddy is considered important security prevention software? posted by ruffin at 7/26/2002 11:52:00 AM

Just so I don't lose the link for later, stumbled over an awfully good JavaMail API tutorial from jGuru. I've written my own SMTP class from scratch/the RFC (which isn't saying much at all), but this is a very neat little collection of functions that make Java email clients pretty danged easy. I think this clinches which programming langauge I make my email client in. Getting a little tired of Mozilla, Outlook Express (Mac, not PC), and Apple's Mail program. Will be nice to get aggravated and be able to do something about it. posted by ruffin at 7/26/2002 11:19:00 AM

Thursday, July 25, 2002
Been looking at ways to get html into Swing (Java). Usenet came up pretty empty on this one, but there are some okay links at various proverbial institutions of higher learning. The basic trick seems to be adding a hand for your cursor when you get to a link. * Adding a hand for your cursor when you get to a link * Swing Tut at Johns Hopkins (I like this one b/c the guy has the guts to make the browser example nav to his geeky home page by default -- and it's well done) * Simple Editor -- WYSIWYG html editors made in Java seem to be some sort of Holy Grail. This one does simple text, but could be a start. * Display images using JEditorPane -- Claims to get you "on your way to writing your own WYSIWYG HTML editor!" Yeah, right. Hrm. I had other pages open... gotta remember to get links before closing windows. In other news, being an old-time Mac user I really enjoy Mozilla's ability to close a tab or window with "Ctrl-W". Sweet. posted by ruffin at 7/25/2002 05:32:00 PM

Okay, perhaps I'm being too harsh, but when .NET developer groups have sites like this one, I'm a little worried about the quality of programmers out there. I'm not exactly in a hotbed of computing genius where I live and work, but the more I interview people to work here and see sites like this online, the more I realize, "There really aren't that many good programmers out there." Hint to interviewees -- If it's been 10 years since you picked up a book on C for the first time but you only used C continuously three years ago on a project that lasted six months, you have six months experience in C, not ten years. :^) Recompiling "Hello World" or even slightly more complex examples out of a book doesn't count! posted by ruffin at 7/25/2002 11:07:00 AM

Tuesday, July 23, 2002
In a somewhat off-topic blog today, I'd like to quickly lament the state of Macintosh gaming. I've been a Mac user for well over a decade now, and I prefer to support Mac companies for supporting the OS I'm using to blog right now. When I hear a game I'm interested in owning is going to be released for the Mac, I generally don't mind going out of my way to get the Mac version. A few extra bucks, a few extra months... I really don't have time to play the games I own now as it is. Right now there are three games available for the Mac that I'd like to purchase. The first two are The Sims and Civilization III. The Sims I'm not sold on quite yet -- seems like one of those games that you either like or don't with no middle ground. Mac or PC, this game is still awfully expensive. With Civ3, I know I'm going to get my dough's worth, and it's a good, low-sys req game that should play fine on my iBook. No problem that it doesn't support multiplayer online on the Mac. If I want to play others online I'll get a build of FreeCiv. The third is No One Lives Forever, and this is the one I'd like to complain about. It's been out for the PC so long it's already got it's own "Game of the Year Edition". Now I like to buy games and other expensive toys, and do have a bit of a budget for how much I can sink into stuff like buying the REALbasic IDE or the VB.NET portion of Visual Studio.NET. To pre-order NOLF for the Mac is $50. To go to the local gaming store and pick up NOLF off the shelf is $20 with quite a bit less wait time. That's madness. Save $30 and put that towards NCAA 2003 for the Playstation 2! Another rant along the same lines... One place even Linux gaming kicks the Mac's arse is in hardware costs. Doom 3 looks exciting enough if the mood comes out anywhere close to what's advertised that between that and the bar-raising-through-the-roof graphics I'm going to buy it even though I suck at first person shooters other than Team Fortress on Quake 1 (and even that's debatable). My iBook's not going to run Doom 3. Neither is my Celeron Win2k tower. Nor is, surprise, my old StarMax Mac clone desktop. I'm going to have to buy a new system. To upgrade to a new Mac tower, heck even an eMac, will cost well over a thousand dollars. To purchase enough components to upgrade my PC will cost me $350 (though I'll probably need a better video card to "really" play). To make a PC from scratch and load it with Linux would cost me about $500, and I'm betting Doom 3 runs just great on that box. Mac gaming will never be worth a rip until the games it does get at least have concurrent releases, and if the prices fall in step with the PC side. Rather, Mac gaming will continue to be more full of "character" than anything else -- Ambrosia software and some other Mac-specific games will probably be about all that interests me. And now, back to playing a little Stuntman that I rented for $6.90 for my Playstation 2... posted by ruffin at 7/23/2002 11:29:00 PM

Monday, July 22, 2002
Another possible addition to the Open Source Software recommended list: Virtual Dub. I've seen this referred to again and again as the way to make a great video file on Windows. I haven't used it, and honestly don't even know what a "Video for Windows" device is, but if my DV camera is I'll give it a whirl once my Firewire card comes in for my Mac (that is, it's a PCI card and oughta work in a WinPC as well). In Appleland, iMovie & Quicktime are the only mature video editing apps. From everything I've heard and seen at this site, Virutal Dub is their equal on Windows. So now we're up to gvim, GIMP (not as nice as on OS X, though), Mozilla, SharpDevelop (though it's not progressing quite like I'd've hoped), and Virtual Dub for Free as in "not just as in beer" software on Windows. Not bad. posted by ruffin at 7/22/2002 03:20:00 PM

There's an interesting post at Slashdot called Triangle Boy Lives that deals with an app that allows one to surf anonymously. I'm still not sure exactly what's going on (just got to the SafeWeb whitepaper [link below]), but the graphic on this page (the Triangle Boy white paper) is pretty funny. Look at the names of the servers to which the user behind the firewall is connecting. Oh, just the usual sites that are on the up-and-up, like WebMD, NY Times/CNN, etc. Yeah, and maybe Monster to fantasize about a new job, or eTrade to do a little stock trading while I'm at work. Maybe even a little Hotmail check. Oh, and what's that last one again? (link for older folk only) ;^) Looks like they forgot to go to blogger. har har. I think The Boy just throws in an extra computer with which it appears you're talking via SSL, but this computer forms a "triangle" with another server that sends you content. I'm not exactly sure how this helps you except that now any IP with Triangle Boy can help you do what SafeWeb.com used to with its servers. That is, if your company blocked SafeWeb's servers' IPs, you could Triangle Boy your way around it. [Quick update:] Yep, that's it. There's a bit on using certificates to help determine that you're using the "Triangle Boy" server you thought you were. Of course to me this means you'll only one step safer than you were before... somebody grabs the TB server, or even its logs, especially if it's not very active, and they can pick apart where you visited. Course who wants to factor two large primes today? posted by ruffin at 7/22/2002 03:06:00 PM

Friday, July 19, 2002
A couple of points for today... * Dan Wahlin's XML for ASP.NET consistently impresses me as the most solid .NET site out there. Example code is good stuff with some comments,even, and it solves new problems instead of showing you fifty ways to customize a DataGrid. Wahlin's site often shows how to utilize web services and XML routines that were originally designed for Java (or another non-.NEt lang) in ASP.NET, which is exactly what people should be doing -- looking outside of the Microsoft box. He's also quite prompt about returning emails in my experience, even for relatively trite requests. Good site. * Thomson Multimedia's royality scheme for mp3 applications has to have helped give mp3 it's "underground" status. You can't even write an mp3 player (we're not even talking an mp3 encoder; this is just for a player (though encoders have the same minimum)) without shelling out $15,000 a year in royalties. Is it any surprise people have been releasing mp3 apps for free and keeping them open source -- both so that Thomson has nobody to go after? I wanted to make a simple shareware mp3 player in REALbasic for Mac Classic and Windows that has smart playlists like iTunes 3 (it's just a few SQL statements and routines). Forget it. Might make it freeware, providing I still make one (probably not -- REALbasic with "Access-like" database support is an extra $200, though it strikes me that I could still do it for Windows in VB 6, but how many Windows users are upset they don't get iTunes 3? :^D). posted by ruffin at 7/19/2002 09:35:00 AM

Thursday, July 18, 2002
The MacWorld New York Keynote was presented yesterday by Steve Jobs, and I'm not real impressed. Apple's Bluetooth and Rendevous implementations show that they've still got good ideas, and I think their ability to provide an all-in-one solution for 90% of what consumers would like to do with their PCs still makes a Mac the best consumer PC out there, in theory. There are a few things that didn't sit well with me in reality, however. Apple's move from iTools as a free service that offered email, net-storage, and web space, over to .Mac ("dot Mac") as a $100/year "pay to play" service (with admittedly more features than iTools) with no real middle ground, is a big mistake. Honestly, how much does it cost Apple to serve out 10 megs of web pages per Mac sold or to keep email forwarding turned on? You're paying a premium for your Mac; you should expect premium support. Now that Apple's broken an implicit promise they're going to have to eat a little PR crow. To the concept that Macs cost a premium, people (incl Jobs at the keynote) said and say, "For a comparable computer in the Windows world you'd have to pay quite a bit more!" Well, sure. If I want a PC that looks like a lamp and burns DVDs I'm going to pay through the nose for some maniac to build me one. But for a new PC that does exactly what I want it to I'm out all of -- keep my old hard drive and carry the one -- $351 + shipping (and an hour to put it together)! Not to mention the Mac still doesn't have as many apps as Windows, nor is processor performance on par with current Pentium 4's and AMD XP processors. For very specfic uses the G4 is an excellent processor -- editing video, for example. But for, say, programming in Java or even getting good speed with window paints on the desktop we're not quite there [in OS X 10.1.5]. Apple doesn't have the luxury of writing checks it can't cash when it comes to keeping its users feeling like they've been well treated. Which brings me to my last quick gripe -- $129 for OS X 10.2? Sure, if I'm upgrading from OS 9, but I've got OS X. Why do I want to pay another $129 for "150 brand new features"? Heck, about 100 of those haven't happened yet (the Rendevous demo that allows a networked printer to be used with no configuration is an example) -- or they're features I can't use without shelling out for .Mac. I'm not impressed. At least iTunes 3 is free. But only for OS X. It's planned obsolescence, "buy or bye", embrace and discard, all for the sake of squeezing dough outta my turnip. It's not new to Mac users, but Apple's getting uncommonly good at it. Apple's got a good thing. In the interest of keeping in the black, I think Apple might expect its users to not only have Jaguar on the hard drive, but also parked in the driveway. posted by ruffin at 7/18/2002 12:15:00 PM

Tuesday, July 16, 2002
I'm of a mind that open source software will, eventually, dominate the most common software uses we have today provided that the way we compute doesn't change radically. Mozilla has taken forever, but I believe the browser is quite good, at least on Windows (and I assume Linux). I've heard good things about Open Office, and I'm a weekly to monthly user of AbiWord and the Gimp. These are good apps. MacWrite was a good app. Honestly, if Microsoft would stop changing the format of a Word doc [which MacWrite could import and write out, at least with MacLinkPlus], MacWrite 2.0 had everything I need in a word processor. Em@iler is another exmaple of a great app that never needed to improve, imo. Open source software can get to the point (and in some cases has) where the functionally it has doesn't need to improve. Then hopefully open, unchanging standards will slowly replace the proprietary de facto standards Microsoft has many of us using now. Now the thing about open source software, no matter what Richard Stallman thinks he's saying, is that it doesn't easily make money. People like money. People need money to eat. People want money to buy cars and houses and Playstation 2's. Again, people like money. Even if Stallman has the high moral ground, he is [self-admittedly] an idealist. Which makes me wonder if people will start making software based on GPL'd software that's nearly impossible to compile. Mozilla is difficult enough, and it's trying to be straightforward (granted I picked a relatively unfair case there). Think about it... the GPL says I have to give you the source. I can charge to compile the source, can't I? If I get an esoteric enough compilation routine, don't you need me almost as badly as you needed me before? Does the GPL encourage poorly designed code when people like money? Anyhow, the main point here is that open source software will, some day, eventually rule the desktop. Once MS Word opens AbiWord format, you'll know we're close. [Quick update: Forgot two of my favorite open source apps that I use quite a bit -- the "convert" function of Image Magick and, of course, vim.] posted by ruffin at 7/16/2002 12:34:00 PM

Sunday, July 14, 2002
Phew, the 11th's post was a ramble. In other alternative browser news, I've downloaded OmniWeb from the OmniGroup again. I have to say, this Mac OS X-only browser really has come a long ways since version 4.0.6 (it's 4.1 now). CSS support is much stronger, it renders to the screen more quickly than Mozilla (and maybe IE? Could just be me), and has a nice interface, though I miss tabbed browsing. Perhaps the neatest feature I've found so far is it's spellcheck. Any text in any textbox is run through the spellchecker (which I'm pretty sure you can turn off), and underlined in dashed red as you type if it doesn't pass muster. It's an obvious feature for any browser, but I've never even heard of it in another browser. Heck, Mozilla 1.0 didn't even have spellcheck in its email. posted by ruffin at 7/14/2002 11:57:00 AM

Thursday, July 11, 2002
One bias I see with web programmers (heck, all programmers) that is somewhat related to my post on the 9th is the belief that all users have ph4t boxen with which to view one's site (or run one's application). I see things like, "You should make sure your html code follows standards DOM and CSS when coding dhtml," but the banner-carrying standards-compliant browser, Mozilla, isn't exactly a skinny beast. Here's my latest "enlightenment" with respect to the idea that "standards aren't standards in practice". I've recently started editing digital video a bit at home for fun (hang on; I'm getting there), and my not-quite-one-year-old-but-already-over-the-hill iBook only has 10 gigs of hard drive space (can you imagine saying "only 10 gigs" five or six years ago?). Once you've counted up your OS X partition and Classic partition and all your files and apps, you're getting close to 10 gigs even after trashing all your mp3s and Quake 3 (which actually runs okay if you turn all the video options to their lowest levels ;^D). Long story short, I don't have space to edit on the 'book when five minutes take one gig of space. Re-enter the StarMax, my old Macintosh clone (that's right, a Mac clone. It's an old puppy). With a twenty gig hard drive with an empty 10 gig partition, I'm back in business with iMovie 2 on OS 9. I'm also stuck with 96 megs of RAM (okay, okay, I could upgrade to 160, but all the slots are full and Max ain't getting more of my money). Mozilla is a bloated goat on this Mac, and I need RAM to run other goats, like Limewire. Since this box came out of mothballs, it's continually been online and turned on, so Outlook Express, AIM, etc are all back. And I need a browser. Best answer is iCab. Still free while in beta, iCab on OS 9 has a skimpy 4.3 meg RAM footprint (compared to 40+ for Moz). But does any site render just right in iCab? These self-righteous folk who say dhtml must follow w3c try their stuff out on this browser that's quite popular on Mac Classic? No way. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm willing to trade some presentation for a smaller RAM footprint as long as web pages are viewable and functional. And that's all the web programmer needs to worry about. So my point, since we've all forgotten it by now, is that coding to idealistic standards isn't the answer -- Mozilla isn't the only answer, and w3c supported "standards" don't always wear well in the "real" world. Sniff browsers, target specific platforms, even IE on Windows, when you need thick functionality in a thin client -- so as not to drive yourself mad -- and don't forget your 3.2. posted by ruffin at 7/11/2002 02:55:00 PM

Wednesday, July 10, 2002
You’ve got to be kidding. I’m wet. I’m naked. Your sister is wearing my clothes. And this is all part of some evil plot…TO RULE THE WORLD AS A SOGGY CHIMP IN MY BIRTHDAY SUIT?! posted by ruffin at 7/10/2002 02:23:00 PM

Tuesday, July 09, 2002
Yesterday, Slashdot ran an article entitled Web Designers Ignoring Standards and Support IE Only. The article got a fair number of replies, though I haven't yet bothered. Here's the bottom line for me: Web developers are not paid to be idealists. We're paid to be efficient. If 99% of one's intended audience already uses IE on Windows, there no compelling reason to make sure the users of other browsers enjoy the same "uplevel" experience. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll know I'm a cross-platform proponent. I use two Macs at home, one with Classic and one with OS X (including X11 on top of Darwin) and at work I use Mozilla for email (against company policy; what a rebel!) and most of my browsing. I'm not saying that one should condone sites that are unusable in other browsers, just that there's no reason to waste time making sure all the functionality in IE is there for other minority browser users. People shouldn't expect web hackers brought up on the Visual Studio IDE to have the skills to write perfect code, nor should they expect companies to have the money to hire only the people that take it on themselves to make this sort of code. And the answer that people should use Flash and Java to get fancy functionality into their pages just drives me crazy. Using proprietary third-party plug-ins, regardless of their seemingly ubiquitous nature (Can I have a spell check?!!), is an even worse cop out. You think iCab supports Flash? (I'm not sure, personally) How about Links or Lynx? Any way you slice it, you're going to be missing someone. And how many of these self-righteous posters check their code even on Opera? You can stick Mozilla in a microwave, but that don't make you a biscuit. Like it or not, the web is [currently] Microsoft's on the client side. Programmers aren't paid to be political; they're [usually] paid to be efficient and to provide the "most" products to an efficiently maximized cross-section of their company's clients. Web standards are a great but often esoteric place to maximize cross-platform usefulness, but even .innerHtml started out as a non-standard property. Anyhow, enough rambling. You wanna provide everyone the same experience? Use html 3.2 (kinda like this blog). You want to provide fancy thick functionality in a thin client? Use dhtml. If you want your dhtml to provide political commentary, make it work perfectly in every browser. If you want to get your job done and make the boss happy, make sure it at least works on Windows in IE. (As a side note, I usually run rush jobs through the latest versions of Windows IE and Mozilla on Mac and Windows. I use IE to make sure the boss and our clients are happy, and I use Mozilla to make sure that, if the minority browser client will meet me half-way, they too can have access "as intended". Then, when applicable, I make a dummy html 3.2 page for everyone else. Just 2¢.) posted by ruffin at 7/09/2002 06:17:00 PM

Monday, July 01, 2002
Not quite to the middle of a two-week vacation and I thought I'd make a quick update. When I've had some free time in the vacation I've started playing a little with some old tools I put together years ago (and have since stopped updating) for programming the Atari 2600 on the Macintosh. It's certainly helpful to program using assembler if you haven't, and it doesn't get much easier (at least with respect to the processor) than the 2600. One Y register, one X reg, and the accumulator. Only 128 bytes of RAM is another large plus. Makes you create some pretty tight code, and certainly helps you learn to count bytes. Potentially the best bit of the 2600 is that you essentially have to hold the electron gun's hand as it paints to the screen. You have to time your code perfectly to process its screen drawing logic in the time it takes for the gun to move across the screen... One slip-up and the screen starts scrolling like mad. Though I have a relatively unconventional programming education, learning assembler (enough to get by, anyhow) years ago has made me much better in my work today. It's taken me years to finally figure out how my experience has helped me program the way I do -- and why people who cut their proverbial teeth on Visual Basic take a much different approach, doing things like tying GUI to logic (eg, tying code that reads files in a directory to invisible directory and drive controls). It's essential, imo, to get people started right by programming in a pure environment like the 2600 than one like VB where the controls and some pointing and clicking can make an app. Bad habits die hard. posted by ruffin at 7/01/2002 10:45:00 PM

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